This afternoon, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee will adopt its position on the so-called Omnibus I package, which aims to "simplify" the EU Supply Chain Directive. Last Wednesday, the Conservatives (EPP), Liberals (Renew) and Social Democrats (S&D) had already agreed on a joint position that would massively weaken the CSDDD. The EPP had previously threatened its platform partners that it would otherwise join forces with far-right political groups to go even further in undermining the CSDD. It is still uncertain whether the plenary will follow the position of the Committee on Legal Affairs next week.
Armin Paasch, human rights expert at Misereor, criticises the position of the Legal Affairs Committee as "disenfranchising the weakest":
"Under the guise of European competitiveness, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, of all people, wants to dismantle human rights protection in the economy. Contrary to the Supply Chain Directive adopted in 2024, EU member states would not have to guarantee uniform civil liability throughout Europe for companies that disregard human rights standards and thereby cause great harm to particularly vulnerable people and the environment.
According to the Legal Affairs Committee's position, only around 120 companies in Germany would be obliged to respect human rights and the environment instead of the current 2,700. Such a competition policy at the expense of banana workers, seamstresses and indigenous people fundamentally contradicts the claim of the self-proclaimed European community of values and would ultimately also harm the economy.
Particularly scandalous is the approach of the conservative EPP, which had openly threatened to completely undermine the directive together with far-right groups if the social democrats and liberals did not give in. Several CDU/CSU MEPs had called for the complete abolition of the CSDDD in unison with the AfD, Fratelli d'Italia, the Rassemblement National and the PiS.
The hasty and arbitrary concession by the Spanish S&D group leader Iratxe García Pérez last Wednesday is also highly problematic, as it sets a fatal precedent: opponents of the Green Deal in the EPP are likely to be encouraged to continue threatening conservative and far-right majorities in the future if the parties of the political centre do not bow to their demands."
